News Brief

January 17, 1969

The demonstration began in the municipal square where the heads of student organizations and faculty members of Tel Aviv University addressed crowds. Thousands of posters bore such legends as “De Gaulle Is Not France,” “Vive La France–To Hell With De Gaulle” and “De Gaulle, Israel Is Not Algeria.” The students later marched to the Embassy on the Tel Aviv beachfront which was heavily guarded by police with doors locked and windows shuttered.

(More than 1,000 persons demonstrated in New York today in front of the French Consulate on Fifth Ave. The demonstration was supported by member agencies of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and other national Jewish groups and student organizations. The demonstrators carried signs saying “Russia Arms Arabs — de Gaulle Prevents Israel’s Defense.” A spokesman for the demonstrators met with acting Consul General Jacques Landry and presented statements expressing disapproval of French Middle East policies. In another statement issued in New York, Stanley H. Lowell, vice president of the American Jewish Congress, said “There is a deep-rooted feeling that Gen. de Gaulle has joined the ranks of anti-Semites and that his latest action against Israel is merely a continuation of the anti-Jewish prejudice he voiced in Nov. 1967 when he described the Jewish people as an ‘elite people, self-assured and domineering.'”

(More protests were registered in New York against the embargo. The Labor Zionist Organization of America charged that Gen. de Gaulle openly supported the Arabs and that hard cash was more important to de Gaulle than justice, peace or Israeli lives.” The charge was contained in a telegram to Charles Lucet, the French Ambassador to Washington. More than 1,000 Jews gathered yesterday in front of the French Consulate in Chicago to protest the embargo. A delegation headed by David S. Bern, chairman of the Illinois Conference of Jewish Organizations, met with Jean Mendeaux, Consul-General, and handed him a petition criticizing the embargo. Mr. Bern said the envoy defended the French action but agreed to convey the petition to his Government. In Boston, the Ad Hoc Committee for a Just French Policy in the Middle East, submitted a statement to French Consul Jacques Massenet protesting the embargo and urging that it be lifted immediately. The petition was presented by Rabbi Manuel Saltzman, president of the Jewish Community Council of Boston. The statement said Gen. de Gaulle’s “arbitrary action assists the Soviet Union in its design to achieve domination in the Middle East.”)

(In Brussels, police dispersed a crowd of about 60 Jewish school boys and girls who demonstrated without a permit in front of the French Embassy here yesterday to protest the embargo. The youngsters were members of Jewish youth organizations but their demonstration was not authorized by the Jewish Students Union. They shouted “Love Live France, Without de Gaulle.” Police permitted them to protest for 20 minutes before they took action.